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By Carey GillamREUTERS • Tuesday October 15, 2013 8:15 AM

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoJohn M. Glionna | Los Angeles TimesSouth Dakota rancher Scott Reder, who lost 200 head of cattle in a blizzard Oct. 3-5, displays ear tags from his dead animals. The state veterinarian said 20,000 might have died in the storm.

The storm was just so sudden, South Dakota cattle rancher Kathy Jobgen remembers.

A freezing rain, followed by an avalanche of 4 feet of snow and winds of 70 mph, hit thousands
of cattle still grazing on “summer pastures” at a time when the animals had not yet grown their
protective winter coats and were ill-prepared for the harsh conditions.

Swirling snow lodged in some of the animals’ lungs, suffocating them. Hypothermia killed more.
And others were caught in gullies or plunged off slickened ledges, livestock experts said.

“I’ve been in this business 50 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jobgen, who
estimated her family lost nearly half of its herd of 350 when the storm swept through Oct. 3-5. “
The vision of seeing all these cattle dead is something you can’t wipe out of our eyes.”

South Dakota had the sixth-largest cattle herd in the United States in January, with some 3.85
million head, the U.S. Agriculture Department said. Most of those are in the western part of the
state, where the storm struck, leaving carcasses strewn on the Plains and hitting ranchers with
tens of millions of dollars in losses.

Dustin Oedekoven, South Dakota state veterinarian, said reports to his office so far total about
3,300 head of cattle dead. But he estimates the number will eventually reach 20,000.

“It really is going to take a hit on the industry here,” Oedekoven said.

South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard on Friday issued an executive order allowing truckers carrying
cattle carcasses in the state to exceed normal weight limits to help expedite removal of the dead
animals.

Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, said most
cattle ranchers do not carry private insurance policies because they are cost-prohibitive and have
exclusions that would have ruled out coverage in this situation anyway.

She said the ranchers’ only financial assistance would be found in a disaster program that is
part of a proposed U.S. farm bill. But the U.S. government shutdown and delays in passing a new
farm bill have left ranchers with no assistance.

Christen said each calf lost has a market value of roughly $800 to $900 and each cow is valued
at about $1,800, so the total losses could easily be in the tens of millions of dollars.